Deep Meaning at Work

Original captions, with speaker attribution and timestamps. Wording is uncorrected; no audio verification. Engineering Summit attribution comes from the memorial contributor. Recording date: 2025-09-24 (filename and MP4 metadata).

00:00:10.547 – 00:00:12.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There we go.

00:00:13.267 – 00:00:15.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And we'll play from the current slide.

00:00:16.587 – 00:00:17.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right. Hello, everybody.

00:00:20.067 – 00:00:24.229

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
If you were not in the first session, this will be the first half of this

00:00:24.229 – 00:00:27.379

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
presentation will be nearly identical to the first one.

00:00:27.379 – 00:00:31.316

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The second-half I'm going to focus on the the slides I didn't get to,

00:00:31.316 – 00:00:34.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
so I'll sort of skim over the other part. So if you want to.

00:00:35.107 – 00:00:36.787

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
See more detail on the.

00:00:38.867 – 00:00:42.674

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
3rd, 3/4, third, fourth of the talk content.

00:00:42.674 – 00:00:48.257

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Go watch the other one. All right. So without further ado, hello,

00:00:48.257 – 00:00:53.587

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I am Steven Trimbeck. This is Deep Meaning at work. This is a.

00:00:54.067 – 00:00:58.922

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Practical philosophical talk about addressing the the challenges that come

00:00:58.922 – 00:01:03.389

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
with being alive as a human being, needing to make money to survive,

00:01:03.389 – 00:01:08.051

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but also kind of wanting to enjoy the ride and get something out of it.

00:01:08.051 – 00:01:10.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Most of this will relate to work.

00:01:10.987 – 00:01:14.837

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Not all of it directly. Generally I I don't see any separation

00:01:14.837 – 00:01:18.197

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
between work and life. That's my personal perspective.

00:01:18.197 – 00:01:22.719

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So while a lot of these things do not make a direct correlation to a work

00:01:22.719 – 00:01:26.874

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
problem or some sort of goal, I think you guys will be able to draw

00:01:26.874 – 00:01:28.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
those correlations yourselves.

00:01:28.707 – 00:01:33.586

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it will make sense. OK, cool. So all this stuff is practical.

00:01:33.586 – 00:01:37.948

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I just drew from like my own notes and journals and stuff.

00:01:37.948 – 00:01:43.345

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is what has worked for me. So all of this is is first hand now like

00:01:43.345 – 00:01:45.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
everything I borrowed and.

00:01:45.267 – 00:01:49.040

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Drew from many different sources. Nothing is is truly unique.

00:01:49.040 – 00:01:53.360

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So take it and make it your own. And all of the things that we'll talk

00:01:53.360 – 00:01:56.585

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
about today, I mean the the good section is meant to

00:01:56.585 – 00:01:59.993

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
be practiced. You know, none of it should be, you know,

00:01:59.993 – 00:02:01.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
earth-shaking or.

00:02:01.107 – 00:02:03.734

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It should feel familiar and it's meant to be done.

00:02:03.734 – 00:02:06.155

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Just looking at it isn't going to do anything.

00:02:06.155 – 00:02:09.966

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It has to be practiced day in and day out. Alright, so let's get started.

00:02:09.966 – 00:02:14.138

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And by the way, if you have any questions, you can just come off mute and ask if

00:02:14.138 – 00:02:16.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
something really doesn't make sense or.

00:02:16.147 – 00:02:19.508

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I glossed over something. Feel free to to just talk.

00:02:19.508 – 00:02:23.757

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is not super formal. Otherwise I will reserve like 10 minutes

00:02:23.757 – 00:02:26.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
or so at the end for questions and answers.

00:02:28.467 – 00:02:31.363

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right, So what this talk is about going to

00:02:31.363 – 00:02:35.862

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
address. If you haven't read the abstract, the premise is pretty simple.

00:02:35.862 – 00:02:40.854

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There are large-scale societal challenges, and these are not separate from work.

00:02:40.854 – 00:02:43.627

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
They bleed into our work because, as I said,

00:02:43.627 – 00:02:48.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I don't see any separation between life and work. You're the same person.

00:02:48.427 – 00:02:51.786

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Yes, we put on roles, we behave a little bit differently,

00:02:51.786 – 00:02:56.361

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but that's that's fine. Fundamentally, you are the same person and how you are

00:02:56.361 – 00:03:00.936

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
in one domain of your life profoundly affects how you are in all the others to

00:03:00.936 – 00:03:05.627

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
a degree that I think we we forget about until we start making positive changes.

00:03:05.747 – 00:03:11.895

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So most of this is just about stuff that I did over the past few years,

00:03:11.895 – 00:03:18.812

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
especially over the last six months or so on a personal quest to try to enjoy my

00:03:18.812 – 00:03:20.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
time and find meaning in.

00:03:20.947 – 00:03:25.661

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Even boring moments doing stuff I don't want to do, especially those moments.

00:03:25.661 – 00:03:30.254

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And I wanted to didn't want to settle for a life that was just pretty good.

00:03:30.254 – 00:03:34.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And then I had to go for go to work and it was conditionally good. You know,

00:03:34.907 – 00:03:39.621

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
if I got what I wanted or I was working on something I liked or with people I

00:03:39.621 – 00:03:40.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
liked, it was.

00:03:40.587 – 00:03:45.590

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Fine, but otherwise I dreaded it. I wanted to move towards an existence

00:03:45.590 – 00:03:50.385

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
where it's pretty much good. There is something valuable about every

00:03:50.385 – 00:03:53.651

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
moment, and so this is basically recounting my

00:03:53.651 – 00:03:58.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
personal experience and what I've learned along the way. It's not.

00:03:58.307 – 00:04:01.670

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The only way, by all means, I'm open to other things.

00:04:01.670 – 00:04:05.906

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Like I said in the first talk, I am a human experiment in progress.

00:04:05.906 – 00:04:10.390

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
These are my results so far. Take what you like. All right, here we go.

00:04:10.390 – 00:04:14.563

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Here's what's on the label. You're going to learn how to be happy,

00:04:14.563 – 00:04:16.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
regardless of circumstances.

00:04:16.427 – 00:04:20.578

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Feel connected to your work and the people around you gracefully navigate,

00:04:20.578 – 00:04:24.398

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
change in and out of work. And none of the stuff we're going to talk

00:04:24.398 – 00:04:28.715

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
about requires you to change anything about what you actually do in your job.

00:04:28.715 – 00:04:31.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Now you can, and you may, but I would recommend.

00:04:31.507 – 00:04:34.748

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Trying these changes first to see where that leads you,

00:04:34.748 – 00:04:38.337

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and then if you want to go forward and make external changes,

00:04:38.337 – 00:04:41.694

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
change your new role, learn new skills, change companies.

00:04:41.694 – 00:04:45.572

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I have absolutely no problem with saying you're miserable. I mean,

00:04:45.572 – 00:04:46.787

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
go do something else.

00:04:46.987 – 00:04:50.040

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But try this first, because I think you may find that you

00:04:50.040 – 00:04:52.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
don't need a lot of the changes you thought you didn't.

00:04:54.307 – 00:04:57.185

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
OK, so I'm not going to spend a lot of time

00:04:57.185 – 00:05:00.324

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
on the sort of negative current state problems,

00:05:00.324 – 00:05:04.510

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but I think most of us are pretty familiar with this. You know,

00:05:04.510 – 00:05:09.743

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
media and movies and podcasts is these things are all pretty good at describing

00:05:09.743 – 00:05:13.144

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
problems. Not a whole lot of people bring solutions

00:05:13.144 – 00:05:13.667

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
to bear.

00:05:14.227 – 00:05:19.712

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I sought my own and people who are trying to do the same, but it's worth mentioning,

00:05:19.712 – 00:05:22.874

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you know, my view of where we're coming from and

00:05:22.874 – 00:05:26.939

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
what's worth addressing. So there's a lot of technological and

00:05:26.939 – 00:05:29.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
societal change. There's a lot of disruption.

00:05:29.987 – 00:05:35.112

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
A lot of negative emotion and I think more troubling that there is an influx of

00:05:35.112 – 00:05:39.661

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
noise in our lives. Seemingly we are, you know, talking at each other,

00:05:39.661 – 00:05:44.851

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but we feel less and less connected and there's a sort of hollowness to a lot of

00:05:44.851 – 00:05:45.107

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
our.

00:05:45.107 – 00:05:48.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Existence. That's not something you can easily

00:05:48.427 – 00:05:51.676

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
measure, but it the symptoms clearly show up,

00:05:51.676 – 00:05:55.278

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you know, in the form of a mental health crisis or

00:05:55.278 – 00:06:00.787

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
quiet quitting or checking out or, you know, on the other end, extreme anger.

00:06:00.867 – 00:06:03.884

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All these sorts of problems are are really, you know,

00:06:03.884 – 00:06:08.410

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
symptoms of underlying things that are difficult to measure and we don't spend a

00:06:08.410 – 00:06:12.042

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
lot of time thinking about. I'm not going to spend a lot of time

00:06:12.042 – 00:06:15.729

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
talking about it because I don't really like diagnosing problems.

00:06:15.729 – 00:06:18.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is what worked for me and I think at scale.

00:06:18.707 – 00:06:22.255

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It can work for a lot of people. That's up to you to decide.

00:06:22.255 – 00:06:25.803

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But in the face of all those problems, all these challenges,

00:06:25.803 – 00:06:29.410

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
people have a couple basic and very understandable responses.

00:06:29.410 – 00:06:32.667

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There's no judgment in it at all. It's just what we do.

00:06:34.707 – 00:06:38.145

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right, so the first bucket here is comes in two

00:06:38.145 – 00:06:41.053

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
forms, and this is general disillusionment.

00:06:41.053 – 00:06:46.474

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So I can pull up a bunch of quotes that demonstrate what I'm trying to talk about

00:06:46.474 – 00:06:50.705

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
here, but we can capsulate in the quote. Why bother? Who cares?

00:06:50.705 – 00:06:52.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This doesn't matter.

00:06:53.347 – 00:06:54.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It is a sense that.

00:06:56.507 – 00:06:58.546

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm going to do things that are in it for me,

00:06:58.546 – 00:07:00.939

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
or things that are conditional based on the outcomes,

00:07:00.939 – 00:07:04.485

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
whether they help people or they they do something that I like or help somebody

00:07:04.485 – 00:07:04.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
else.

00:07:05.427 – 00:07:08.246

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And if I can't, then I'm going to not do it,

00:07:08.246 – 00:07:12.192

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
or I'm going to be unmotivated. So two general responses here.

00:07:12.192 – 00:07:15.887

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Nihilism is the sense that nothing matters, so why bother?

00:07:15.887 – 00:07:20.898

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Sometimes this descends into hedonism. Just I'm just going to seek pleasure and

00:07:20.898 – 00:07:21.587

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
avoid pain.

00:07:22.147 – 00:07:25.119

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And that's what most of my existence is about.

00:07:25.119 – 00:07:30.177

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm going to do the bare minimum to get by, maybe serve a couple of the values,

00:07:30.177 – 00:07:34.476

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but for the most part, nothing matters, so who cares? And escapism,

00:07:34.476 – 00:07:39.092

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
as I mentioned the first time, is even more dangerous in my opinion of a

00:07:39.092 – 00:07:41.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
world view because it supposes that there.

00:07:41.747 – 00:07:45.960

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Is a better place. You know, there's another job, another company,

00:07:45.960 – 00:07:50.487

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
another life, another, I don't know, another girlfriend or boyfriend or

00:07:50.487 – 00:07:55.266

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
another set of life circumstances that then I'll be happy, then I'll be OK,

00:07:55.266 – 00:07:57.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
then it will be good enough.

00:07:57.107 – 00:08:00.039

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And I think we know that that is a lie. In general,

00:08:00.039 – 00:08:04.551

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
if you're above like a baseline, you know, far be it from me to say if you are,

00:08:04.551 – 00:08:07.201

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you know, suffering profoundly from, you know,

00:08:07.201 – 00:08:11.487

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
some like intense like pain disorder or something that you should be happy.

00:08:11.487 – 00:08:14.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But if you're above some basic baseline and it's.

00:08:14.307 – 00:08:18.198

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Not that high of a base of a bar. Then if you are not able to find

00:08:18.198 – 00:08:21.334

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
contentment, you probably will not find it in another

00:08:21.334 – 00:08:23.890

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
thing. Doesn't mean you can't make external

00:08:23.890 – 00:08:26.794

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
changes, but this is a different kind of delusion

00:08:26.794 – 00:08:30.627

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that is very dangerous because unlike nihilism in the sense that.

00:08:31.027 – 00:08:34.224

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You never find peace. You're always looking. That,

00:08:34.224 – 00:08:38.738

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
in my opinion, is doomed to fail. And then there's status quo thinking.

00:08:38.738 – 00:08:43.503

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is the other general bucket. This is believing that either there is no

00:08:43.503 – 00:08:46.387

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
problem or that the problems are conditional.

00:08:46.387 – 00:08:51.351

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Or that you can overcome, you know, large scale problems or changes to ways

00:08:51.351 – 00:08:54.682

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
of being, to changes in your environment and human

00:08:54.682 – 00:08:57.817

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
society, or whatever the problems are simply by

00:08:57.817 – 00:09:01.279

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
working harder, doubling down on traditional success

00:09:01.279 – 00:09:01.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
measures.

00:09:02.827 – 00:09:08.552

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Whatever those may be. Fame, fortune, like people liking what you're doing.

00:09:08.552 – 00:09:12.017

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Followers, please don't get me started on the

00:09:12.017 – 00:09:17.440

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Internet. You know what this looks like. That does not work. And again,

00:09:17.440 – 00:09:18.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
these people end up.

00:09:19.067 – 00:09:24.778

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Compensating generally through the same sort of comfort seeking or desire to numb

00:09:24.778 – 00:09:29.375

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
yourself or escape in some way. And I don't think very few people

00:09:29.375 – 00:09:34.459

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
actually believe this on a conscious level. Yeah, so that's that. Again,

00:09:34.459 – 00:09:38.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
neither. None of these are wrong. They make sense, actually.

00:09:38.867 – 00:09:41.900

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Their logical reactions to challenges, to uncertainty.

00:09:41.900 – 00:09:45.209

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
How do you handle uncertainty, especially at the big scale?

00:09:45.209 – 00:09:49.455

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It tends to make you feel powerless, and there aren't that many responses to

00:09:49.455 – 00:09:51.881

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that. People generally make pretty rational

00:09:51.881 – 00:09:54.418

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
decisions. It just doesn't look good when you

00:09:54.418 – 00:09:57.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
multiply that at a large scale for a culture at a company or a.

00:09:58.467 – 00:10:02.198

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Culture for a country. So what can we do? Nope, we're not there yet.

00:10:02.198 – 00:10:06.685

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
We're almost done with this part, though. How do these strategies affect our lives

00:10:06.685 – 00:10:11.173

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and work? I mean, you can see it, right? It it creates an existence that is overly

00:10:11.173 – 00:10:13.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
competitive. It's what's in it for me.

00:10:33.227 – 00:10:37.275

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All sorts of you become vulnerable to all sorts of other problems,

00:10:37.275 – 00:10:41.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
so I don't really need to belabor this point. I think this part is a given.

00:10:41.907 – 00:10:42.667

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Given.

00:10:46.627 – 00:10:49.373

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So here's the more interesting part. So, you know,

00:10:49.373 – 00:10:52.120

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
we met with the same challenges as everybody else.

00:10:52.120 – 00:10:56.481

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm just a a fellow human being met with all the same problems over the past few

00:10:56.481 – 00:11:00.197

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
years. Especially like, you know, I I saw that I want to be content,

00:11:00.197 – 00:11:03.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I want to be happy, or at least I want to be OK pretty much

00:11:03.427 – 00:11:04.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
no matter what's going on.

00:11:05.347 – 00:11:09.357

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And I want to find a way to do that within my control. And I mostly got there.

00:11:09.357 – 00:11:11.793

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But you know, work had always been a challenge.

00:11:11.793 – 00:11:15.701

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And but I also wanted to have ambitions. I wanted to do things in the world.

00:11:15.701 – 00:11:19.051

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I wanted to help people. I wanted to learn things and I wanted to

00:11:19.051 – 00:11:21.741

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
be involved. And these two things seem fundamentally

00:11:21.741 – 00:11:22.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
opposed.

00:11:22.587 – 00:11:27.480

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
How do I unify that? How do I be content, but also do stuff and be involved?

00:11:27.480 – 00:11:31.102

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And how do I not go crazy? How do I combat this sense of

00:11:31.102 – 00:11:34.278

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
disconnection? How do I feel connected to my work

00:11:34.278 – 00:11:37.583

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
especially? How do I want to be here in the average

00:11:37.583 – 00:11:38.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
moment?

00:11:38.307 – 00:11:43.003

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So this is what I came up with, and this is what has really worked for me.

00:11:43.003 – 00:11:47.762

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So I'm going to describe an ideal state that I'm approaching, like a limit.

00:11:47.762 – 00:11:50.580

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You know, you never quite. It's a direction,

00:11:50.580 – 00:11:53.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but it's not something you'll ever reach.

00:11:53.787 – 00:11:57.790

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So here's my ideal state for a working life. Again,

00:11:57.790 – 00:12:04.024

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I see them as a blend of the same person. I'm not a different person when I'm at

00:12:04.024 – 00:12:08.873

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
work and when I'm at home. I'm the same person and how I carry

00:12:08.873 – 00:12:10.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
myself matters.

00:12:10.147 – 00:12:14.781

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And they bleed into each other. So for me, an ideal state is to feel connected to my

00:12:14.781 – 00:12:17.234

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
work, to feel like what I'm doing matters on

00:12:17.234 – 00:12:19.633

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
some level, to feel that I am contributing.

00:12:19.633 – 00:12:22.359

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I want to feel connected to the people around me,

00:12:22.359 – 00:12:26.393

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and I to some degree I want to feel passion and excitement about what I'm

00:12:26.393 – 00:12:29.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
doing. Not all the time. That's not reasonable, but sometimes.

00:12:29.827 – 00:12:33.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Times I want to feel invested in it and I want to feel a sense of belonging.

00:12:35.187 – 00:12:39.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
O that for me is an ideal statement. I want to feel useful.

00:12:39.987 – 00:12:43.986

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So if I had to boil all of it down to the one thing that made the biggest

00:12:43.986 – 00:12:46.363

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
difference through lots of trial and error,

00:12:46.363 – 00:12:50.200

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and then the rest of the talk is basically a whole bunch of individual

00:12:50.200 – 00:12:53.442

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
ideas that are all supporting or complimentary in some way.

00:12:53.442 – 00:12:57.656

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The one thing that made the biggest difference to my lived experience is like

00:12:57.656 – 00:12:59.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
whether I wanted to be here or not.

00:12:59.907 – 00:13:04.629

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
That's that's really what this is about. What is the one chance that made the

00:13:04.629 – 00:13:06.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
biggest difference? And it is this.

00:13:07.827 – 00:13:12.229

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It is a decision that your work always matters unconditionally.

00:13:12.229 – 00:13:17.593

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I mean like really unconditionally. I say that if my work were being built on

00:13:17.593 – 00:13:21.375

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
an assembly line, at the end of the assembly line is a

00:13:21.375 – 00:13:23.507

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
trash can or an incinerator if.

00:13:23.507 – 00:13:27.715

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
What I did was immediately destroyed and no one ever knew about it.

00:13:27.715 – 00:13:32.665

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So it's demonstrably having no impact outside of myself that even then it would

00:13:32.665 – 00:13:37.491

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
have a net positive inherent value. So whether you see this as like a willful

00:13:37.491 – 00:13:42.132

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
delusion or some sort of, you know, greater like metaphysical or spiritual

00:13:42.132 – 00:13:42.627

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
meaning.

00:13:42.827 – 00:13:46.071

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Doesn't matter. It works either way as long as you

00:13:46.071 – 00:13:50.078

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
inherently make make the choice that what I do matters always.

00:13:50.078 – 00:13:54.785

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is true outside of work too, but it was especially important to hold

00:13:54.785 – 00:13:59.619

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
this belief at work and it made a fundamental difference in the way I carry

00:13:59.619 – 00:14:00.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
myself because now.

00:14:02.267 – 00:14:06.389

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
What I'm doing is not dependent on whether, well, is that something I enjoy?

00:14:06.389 – 00:14:08.958

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Is this going to further my career? Is it easy?

00:14:08.958 – 00:14:12.276

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Is it actually going to make a business impact? I don't know.

00:14:12.276 – 00:14:15.863

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You can't always know that. There are things that are important to

00:14:15.863 – 00:14:17.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
try, but you can't know.

00:14:17.427 – 00:14:20.582

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And you have to try without knowing whether it will work.

00:14:20.582 – 00:14:23.899

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There are so many ways to value whether work matters or not,

00:14:23.899 – 00:14:27.543

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but almost all of them are conditional and external. And you know,

00:14:27.543 – 00:14:30.317

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
in a sort of recursive base case sort of scenario,

00:14:30.317 – 00:14:32.982

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
what happens when none of those things are true?

00:14:32.982 – 00:14:36.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
They don't feel very true and you have to do it anyway.

00:14:36.907 – 00:14:39.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Is there a way to feel like?

00:14:41.307 – 00:14:43.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You're not wasting your life or your moments.

00:14:44.627 – 00:14:47.448

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
By being at work, and for me, this is what it took.

00:14:47.448 – 00:14:51.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Like this changed everything. It is an unconditional belief that.

00:14:52.027 – 00:14:55.517

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
My work matters. So did that pull request actually,

00:14:55.517 – 00:14:58.738

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you know, go through and result in some feature

00:14:58.738 – 00:15:04.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
improvement to improve some metrics for customers? Did this bug fix actually work?

00:15:05.027 – 00:15:08.570

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It's not. It's a fundamentally different premise

00:15:08.570 – 00:15:13.630

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that Nope, that's not how it works. I have chosen and it is a choice.

00:15:13.630 – 00:15:18.185

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I've chosen to care. My work matters and it has a net positive

00:15:18.185 – 00:15:20.787

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
value no matter what. And this is a.

00:15:20.827 – 00:15:24.702

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
A different world view that changes how you aroach everything because you no

00:15:24.702 – 00:15:25.507

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
longer approach.

00:15:26.147 – 00:15:28.811

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
What needs to be done, or what's important,

00:15:28.811 – 00:15:33.473

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
or what feels important from a selfish belief that it depends on the outcome

00:15:33.473 – 00:15:36.985

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
because you don't need it anymore. You may still want it,

00:15:36.985 – 00:15:41.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you may still have a preference for things, but you don't need it to be true.

00:15:41.827 – 00:15:47.061

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it it changes the way you approach everything. Yep. All right, so here we go.

00:15:47.061 – 00:15:50.826

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
What worked for me? So we're going to skip through some of

00:15:50.826 – 00:15:55.741

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
these slides pretty quickly so that we have time to get to the ones I missed

00:15:55.741 – 00:15:56.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
before.

00:15:57.107 – 00:16:00.102

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But I'll still, I'll cover them in brief. All right,

00:16:00.102 – 00:16:04.454

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
so the small moments are not small. They're everything. This is saying that,

00:16:04.454 – 00:16:07.958

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you know, most of our time is regular, boring, small moments,

00:16:07.958 – 00:16:10.614

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and they make up everything, really. You know,

00:16:10.614 – 00:16:14.513

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
peak experiences at the moment of achieving goals really aren't that

00:16:14.513 – 00:16:16.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
important. They're important to add.

00:16:16.627 – 00:16:20.159

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Aspects of ourselves, but we are way overweight in terms of how

00:16:20.159 – 00:16:24.408

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
important those things are. In reality, we would be far better served paying

00:16:24.408 – 00:16:28.436

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
attention to what is the quality of life and the value of an individual,

00:16:28.436 – 00:16:32.850

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
relatively boring moment when nothing's going on, because that is ninety-eight,

00:16:32.850 – 00:16:34.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
ninety-nine percent of your existence.

00:16:35.027 – 00:16:39.842

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And that they're not small. And how you carry yourselves and how much

00:16:39.842 – 00:16:45.139

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you invest meaning into those moments greatly determines the quality of your

00:16:45.139 – 00:16:50.711

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
life and the quality of the the life of the people around you. That's customers,

00:16:50.711 – 00:16:51.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
co-workers.

00:16:51.987 – 00:16:56.391

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Friends, family, if you treat every small moment as if it

00:16:56.391 – 00:17:01.933

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
is a big deal and that it is important how you carry yourself right now,

00:17:01.933 – 00:17:03.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
it will change everything.

00:17:06.827 – 00:17:11.131

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
OK, cool. This is a similar concept. This is simply the premise that as a

00:17:11.131 – 00:17:14.563

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
general heuristic, you can either be leaning in or leaning

00:17:14.563 – 00:17:18.634

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
away from every experience. You can't actually escape any experience.

00:17:18.634 – 00:17:23.345

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You're here whether you like it or not. I would encourage you to instead of when

00:17:23.345 – 00:17:26.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you notice you're leaning away, I'll keep that as a.

00:17:26.707 – 00:17:29.623

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Rough, intuitive definition for now. Instead,

00:17:29.623 – 00:17:32.792

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
do the exact opposite and try to lean in instead.

00:17:32.792 – 00:17:36.406

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
We'll talk a little more about some more ideas in a bit.

00:17:36.406 – 00:17:41.223

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This slide is important to cover, especially in age of large change and new

00:17:41.223 – 00:17:42.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
categorical change.

00:17:42.787 – 00:17:48.496

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I've started trying to navigate primarily using intuition and trust in that

00:17:48.496 – 00:17:54.429

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
intuition rather than a bunch of left brain planning because it's very hard to

00:17:54.429 – 00:17:59.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
do. We all have six months, 12 months, two year plans at every level and.

00:18:00.067 – 00:18:03.876

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm of the opinion that this is largely not just useless,

00:18:03.876 – 00:18:08.341

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but often a destructive exercise. When things are changing rapidly,

00:18:08.341 – 00:18:11.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
it's simply not nimble enough, and it's often.

00:18:13.587 – 00:18:16.847

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Creating bad outcomes. It's how we spend so much time,

00:18:16.847 – 00:18:20.344

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
especially in engineering, trying to ask what can be done,

00:18:20.344 – 00:18:23.960

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
what could be done. We spend very little time thinking about

00:18:23.960 – 00:18:26.567

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
what is it actually like to live that life?

00:18:26.567 – 00:18:29.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Do I actually want to live the existence I'm creating?

00:18:29.827 – 00:18:34.029

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I think that is worth considering. Intuition never makes that mistake if you

00:18:34.029 – 00:18:37.794

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
trust it and you follow it, and I find that it is a much more nimble

00:18:37.794 – 00:18:40.850

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and agile way. Of course, you still have to think about

00:18:40.850 – 00:18:44.725

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
consequences and planning it all out, how you're going to get it done,

00:18:44.725 – 00:18:46.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but I encourage you to start.

00:18:46.307 – 00:18:50.980

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Navigating by a felt sense of what seems like it matters, what feels important,

00:18:50.980 – 00:18:53.667

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
even if it's not popular, and following that,

00:18:53.667 – 00:18:56.412

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
at least for a while and seeing where it goes.

00:18:56.412 – 00:19:00.968

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it hasn't really steered me wrong yet. It works at every level. I highly,

00:19:00.968 – 00:19:03.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
highly recommend taking this approach.

00:19:03.747 – 00:19:07.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Rather than trying to know how it will all workout and planning every step.

00:19:09.747 – 00:19:13.810

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Briefly cover this. How you are was always more important

00:19:13.810 – 00:19:17.872

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
than what you do. This has really helped me when deciding

00:19:17.872 – 00:19:22.075

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
what to do. It's not clear. Sometimes it's still not clear.

00:19:22.075 – 00:19:26.627

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I realized that this is a fallacy like the the premise is wrong.

00:19:26.987 – 00:19:31.764

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
How I my disposition right now is always more important than whatever random task

00:19:31.764 – 00:19:35.783

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
or plan I've set aside. It doesn't matter. Should I do this or that?

00:19:35.783 – 00:19:39.977

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Should I work on this or that? Should I talk to this person or should I

00:19:39.977 – 00:19:42.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
do this thing? It doesn't matter if I find myself.

00:19:43.387 – 00:19:47.177

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Trapped in decisions. I have to take a step back and go.

00:19:47.177 – 00:19:50.568

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Forget about that. Like get your head on straight.

00:19:50.568 – 00:19:55.820

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Like change your the way you're orienting yourself to your work and to the the

00:19:55.820 – 00:19:58.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
present moment. Lean in, basically.

00:19:58.147 – 00:20:01.239

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
If you do that, everything else kind of works out.

00:20:01.239 – 00:20:05.906

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Even if you're doing something dumb, like even you're doing a sort of menial

00:20:05.906 – 00:20:09.361

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
task that it doesn't matter and you're still indecisive.

00:20:09.361 – 00:20:14.513

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
If you simply change the way that you are oriented to the world to be more positive,

00:20:14.513 – 00:20:17.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
open, engaged, sort of trusting, it's going to be fine.

00:20:18.187 – 00:20:20.814

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Work out, often less thinking, more feeling.

00:20:20.814 – 00:20:25.016

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It tends to lead somewhere more interesting, and usually not that long,

00:20:25.016 – 00:20:29.160

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and you end up where you need to be. It's a sort of interesting quirk.

00:20:29.160 – 00:20:33.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm sure you can take this to the extreme and really abuse the idea,

00:20:33.187 – 00:20:34.587

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but you get the premise.

00:20:34.627 – 00:20:35.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You get the premise.

00:20:36.347 – 00:20:38.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right, so now we're into some new content.

00:20:41.467 – 00:20:41.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So.

00:20:43.707 – 00:20:48.513

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Our attention and by proxy, I think our energy is our most valuable

00:20:48.513 – 00:20:54.095

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
commodity or valuable resource in the modern age for humanity. It's not money,

00:20:54.095 – 00:20:57.841

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
it's not time. All of these things are derivative of

00:20:57.841 – 00:20:58.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
attention.

00:20:58.627 – 00:21:02.841

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And to again, to a degree, some sort of felt sense of energy.

00:21:02.841 – 00:21:07.056

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And what you put your attention on is of critical importance.

00:21:07.056 – 00:21:10.590

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
We really are our environments, and more than that,

00:21:10.590 – 00:21:15.824

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
we are what we put our attention on. I live a pretty bizarre life for anyone

00:21:15.824 – 00:21:16.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
who knows me.

00:21:16.947 – 00:21:20.371

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I really don't. I don't consume any news media.

00:21:20.371 – 00:21:25.151

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I do very little web browsing. I listen to almost no informational

00:21:25.151 – 00:21:28.504

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
podcasts. I've withdrawn from a lot of things,

00:21:28.504 – 00:21:32.356

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and I spend most of my time these days in meat space.

00:21:32.356 – 00:21:36.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
That is the stuff and the people that are physically around.

00:21:36.707 – 00:21:39.966

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Around me and you find that your brain starts to rewire.

00:21:39.966 – 00:21:43.683

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
That is the default mode network. The part of your brain that is

00:21:43.683 – 00:21:48.429

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
responsible for thinking and planning and mind wandering reflection tends to worry

00:21:48.429 – 00:21:51.459

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
about stuff that is actually happening in your life.

00:21:51.459 – 00:21:55.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And this has made a profound difference in my lived quality of experience.

00:21:55.827 – 00:22:00.365

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
At work, at home, everywhere. And that I try to make sure that I spend

00:22:00.365 – 00:22:04.647

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
time so it improves the quality of my default mode network uptime.

00:22:04.647 – 00:22:09.824

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So that is the time I'm doing nothing. The quality of my thoughts are better and

00:22:09.824 – 00:22:13.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
they're more relevant to what's actually happening.

00:22:14.147 – 00:22:19.026

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it has made a huge difference. So if something is in your attention at

00:22:19.026 – 00:22:22.603

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
all, to some degree, you eventually become that thing,

00:22:22.603 – 00:22:27.026

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
whether you want to or not. We have this unfortunate belief that we

00:22:27.026 – 00:22:28.587

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
can compensate for that.

00:22:29.227 – 00:22:33.367

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But that is to a large degree not true, and that these things get in

00:22:33.367 – 00:22:36.007

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
subconsciously, whether you want to or not.

00:22:36.007 – 00:22:40.207

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So just be careful about what you let into your attention in any way,

00:22:40.207 – 00:22:44.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
because eventually you're going to be permanently, enduringly altered by it.

00:22:48.147 – 00:22:51.524

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right, so this is more a sort of a Buddhist

00:22:51.524 – 00:22:55.605

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
philosophy yoga. And this is again a heuristic that don't

00:22:55.605 – 00:23:00.037

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
try to fix the inside with the outside. That is your emotions,

00:23:00.037 – 00:23:02.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
your your internal discomfort.

00:23:03.187 – 00:23:06.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I really felt I should be at this place in my career. I really felt I should.

00:23:07.827 – 00:23:10.833

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Have these sort of outcomes or whatever it is, right?

00:23:10.833 – 00:23:14.561

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Those are all external things, but they're you're trying to fix an

00:23:14.561 – 00:23:18.624

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
internal problem with an external change, and this is doomed to failure.

00:23:18.624 – 00:23:21.239

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
These are like categorically different things.

00:23:21.239 – 00:23:23.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You fix the inside with the inside.

00:23:23.347 – 00:23:28.279

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
We'll talk about that in a minute, but this is just a general rule that has

00:23:28.279 – 00:23:33.404

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
really helped me know on what level to solve a problem if I am unhappy about a

00:23:33.404 – 00:23:36.454

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
situation, if I want to be doing or working on

00:23:36.454 – 00:23:37.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
something else.

00:23:38.307 – 00:23:43.399

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The real problem is the discomfort, right? It's not the actual situation.

00:23:43.399 – 00:23:48.009

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And I recognize that if I try to fix it by changing my co-workers,

00:23:48.009 – 00:23:53.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
by getting other people to change the situation to change, my job to change.

00:23:53.667 – 00:23:58.662

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I am perpetuating a problem because now I need the world to be a specific way to be

00:23:58.662 – 00:24:01.220

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
OK. So you cannot fix whether you're OK or

00:24:01.220 – 00:24:06.215

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
not by changing the circumstances. Again, within reason. If you're covered in ants,

00:24:06.215 – 00:24:10.972

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you should knock the ants off of you. Don't sit there saying that you can't fix

00:24:10.972 – 00:24:11.507

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
the ants.

00:24:11.507 – 00:24:15.755

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I can't fix the inside of the outside, but to some degree,

00:24:15.755 – 00:24:20.291

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and generally speaking, once you've stopped trying to do this,

00:24:20.291 – 00:24:22.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
pretty much anything's good.

00:24:23.507 – 00:24:25.853

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So that brings us to the skill of letting go,

00:24:25.853 – 00:24:29.677

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and I think there's one more slide after this and then we'll we'll move to

00:24:29.677 – 00:24:30.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
questions.

00:24:31.627 – 00:24:37.281

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This has been a really powerful skill for me and it works on retty much every level.

00:24:37.281 – 00:24:42.535

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
O once you've decided I'm not going to try to fix inside problems with outside

00:24:42.535 – 00:24:43.067

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
changes.

00:24:44.707 – 00:24:48.975

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
How do you do that? A lot of that is done through just

00:24:48.975 – 00:24:53.320

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
letting it go. If you you sort of intuitively know what

00:24:53.320 – 00:24:57.509

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
this is like, if somebody makes you angry or they say

00:24:57.509 – 00:25:00.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
something rude, you have a moment.

00:25:00.307 – 00:25:06.407

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
After the reaction where it's no longer happening anymore and you've moved on and

00:25:06.407 – 00:25:11.094

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
you can either let it go or you can allow it to keep stocking.

00:25:11.094 – 00:25:16.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So we all sort of know what this is like for emotions. It works for.

00:25:16.387 – 00:25:19.374

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Thoughts. It works for all sorts of problems,

00:25:19.374 – 00:25:24.049

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
beliefs. It is a sort of internal, like relaxing of your grip, sort of,

00:25:24.049 – 00:25:28.204

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and just no longer perpetuating a line of thinking or emotions.

00:25:28.204 – 00:25:33.463

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it is an absolute master skill and just being aware that this is a skill you

00:25:33.463 – 00:25:34.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
can practice.

00:25:34.387 – 00:25:38.597

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
In literally everything. Oh, they didn't put chocolate syrup on my ice

00:25:38.597 – 00:25:42.273

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
cream that I ordered. There's a chance to practice letting it

00:25:42.273 – 00:25:44.882

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
go. You practice it at every level. Oh, OK,

00:25:44.882 – 00:25:49.329

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
they didn't mention me in this this month's like team meeting or whatever.

00:25:49.329 – 00:25:51.107

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There's a chance to let it go.

00:25:51.107 – 00:25:56.126

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And it changes the way once you view this as a game you can play all the time,

00:25:56.126 – 00:25:58.667

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
changes the way you approach everything.

00:26:00.907 – 00:26:02.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So that brings us.

00:26:03.107 – 00:26:07.385

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
To how to view discomfort and the urge to withdraw.

00:26:07.385 – 00:26:13.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This one has been extremely helpful, especially in an age where people.

00:26:14.787 – 00:26:18.560

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Human connection is not a given anymore. It's almost something we're recreating.

00:26:18.560 – 00:26:22.099

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
For some people it's easier than others, but we have to, like, recreate it.

00:26:22.099 – 00:26:24.567

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And when you do these things, of course it cascades.

00:26:24.567 – 00:26:27.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Other people do the same thing and it changes the culture around you.

00:26:29.427 – 00:26:33.783

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But I encourage you to start to view an internal sense of friction or tension in

00:26:33.783 – 00:26:36.310

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
any action. Should I speak up in this meeting?

00:26:36.310 – 00:26:40.396

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Should I say that building the, you know, running these automation tests or

00:26:40.396 – 00:26:43.999

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
whatever is a complete waste of my time? Or refactoring, you know,

00:26:43.999 – 00:26:45.827

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
this old legacy code base is dumb.

00:26:46.947 – 00:26:52.637

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You have a moment of tension like, uh, you know what? I won't. Instead,

00:26:52.637 – 00:26:58.564

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I encourage you to start viewing that initial moment of tension or fear or

00:26:58.564 – 00:27:03.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
hesitancy again, or the urge to withdraw as a signpost for

00:27:03.227 – 00:27:06.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
uh, here is a moment for personal growth.

00:27:06.627 – 00:27:13.055

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Here's a challenge like and if you can move through it, I generally do it anyway.

00:27:13.055 – 00:27:16.505

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Again, within reason. Don't do dumb things,

00:27:16.505 – 00:27:22.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but you view this as a sign is like a game that you are playing in life.

00:27:22.307 – 00:27:25.259

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And for me, like, if you do this long enough,

00:27:25.259 – 00:27:28.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I've begun to see the world and my life in it as.

00:27:30.307 – 00:27:35.416

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
A puzzle, basically. It's a it is basically just the purpose I

00:27:35.416 – 00:27:41.578

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
ascribe to my life in part is that I am here for challenges to for personal

00:27:41.578 – 00:27:47.254

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
growth and that whatever problem I'm struggling with at the moment is

00:27:47.254 – 00:27:48.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
essentially.

00:27:48.227 – 00:27:52.575

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The exact puzzle I need to be working on. It's always the one I need most,

00:27:52.575 – 00:27:55.299

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
no matter what is wrong. If it's bothering me,

00:27:55.299 – 00:28:00.052

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that's because this is an opportunity to overcome it and to make it not a problem

00:28:00.052 – 00:28:02.834

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
anymore. That's the nice part is every time you

00:28:02.834 – 00:28:07.587

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
face these moments of discomfort or the urge to withdraw and you make it through.

00:28:07.667 – 00:28:10.545

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is classic cognitive behavioral psychology.

00:28:10.545 – 00:28:13.657

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It becomes easier from then on. You become stronger.

00:28:13.657 – 00:28:18.297

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It literally doesn't bother you as much anymore until it doesn't bother you at

00:28:18.297 – 00:28:20.881

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
all. And what used to hurt is now painless,

00:28:20.881 – 00:28:23.347

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and then you don't even notice it anymore.

00:28:23.427 – 00:28:27.114

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So I would encourage you to view discomfort as a sort of game.

00:28:27.114 – 00:28:29.865

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You don't always have to take the opportunity,

00:28:29.865 – 00:28:34.254

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but each one is an opportunity to make your life a little bit easier and a

00:28:34.254 – 00:28:35.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
little bit richer.

00:28:37.187 – 00:28:42.299

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I think this is the last slide and that is the most important how to be values

00:28:42.299 – 00:28:45.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
are unconditional. So just like I talked about believing

00:28:45.987 – 00:28:51.033

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that your work has unconditionally matters. What I do matters just full stop.

00:28:51.033 – 00:28:53.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It doesn't matter. No other outcomes.

00:28:54.147 – 00:28:57.387

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And determine whether it was worth doing or not.

00:28:58.547 – 00:29:03.460

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There are many other unconditional values that are also worth adopting,

00:29:03.460 – 00:29:09.124

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and this is how at least I've had a major change in my quality of life and I think

00:29:09.124 – 00:29:14.583

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
in the quality of my work and what I'm willing to do by adhering more to seeing

00:29:14.583 – 00:29:18.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
my life less as a thing I plan out and I'm trying to.

00:29:18.547 – 00:29:22.392

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Get right to a series of things that are happening to me,

00:29:22.392 – 00:29:27.762

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
just like a stream flowing through me. My job is basically just to react well in

00:29:27.762 – 00:29:31.606

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
every situation, and that one of the best ways to do that

00:29:31.606 – 00:29:34.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
is with general unconditional values heuristic so.

00:29:35.267 – 00:29:38.948

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It is a decision to be unconditionally happy. That's a little hard.

00:29:38.948 – 00:29:42.304

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Unconditionally OK. It is a that you can decide these things.

00:29:42.304 – 00:29:46.689

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I can care about my work unconditionally, and there are many others that you can

00:29:46.689 – 00:29:49.233

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
visit and this is not unconditional gratitude.

00:29:49.233 – 00:29:53.563

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And these are just reminders of how to be in every moment and that I have found

00:29:53.563 – 00:29:55.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
that framing my life this way.

00:29:55.267 – 00:29:59.463

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It makes every moment, especially the small, boring ones,

00:29:59.463 – 00:30:05.179

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
significantly easier and much richer. And so I would encourage you to start at

00:30:05.179 – 00:30:10.026

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
least experimenting with, rather than setting traditional goals to

00:30:10.026 – 00:30:11.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
get what you want in life.

00:30:12.067 – 00:30:16.351

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Try viewing life as a thing that is continually happening right here and now.

00:30:16.351 – 00:30:19.866

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And then, for the most part, your goals are to try to adhere to

00:30:19.866 – 00:30:23.436

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
important unconditional values, unconditional love, do whatever.

00:30:23.436 – 00:30:26.018

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Pick whichever few make the most sense to you.

00:30:26.018 – 00:30:30.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And now your goal in every moment is to react according to those values.

00:30:30.827 – 00:30:35.606

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And see how profoundly it changes you and how you interact with everybody.

00:30:35.606 – 00:30:40.448

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I think we'll end it there. There we go. Yeah, QA. So I'll end the sharing.

00:30:40.448 – 00:30:44.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Does anyone have questions or comments? I know it's a long monologue.

00:30:56.187 – 00:31:00.223

Prosceno, Chris (CAI - Atlanta)
Hey, Stephen, I just wanted to quickly say thank you

00:31:00.223 – 00:31:04.411

Prosceno, Chris (CAI - Atlanta)
for this session. Very rare that we have these type of

00:31:04.411 – 00:31:10.427

Prosceno, Chris (CAI - Atlanta)
opportunities to have these types of discussions and deep meaning discussions.

00:31:10.947 – 00:31:16.227

Prosceno, Chris (CAI - Atlanta)
And I I'd hope that you can take this on the road on a road show through Cox Auto.

00:31:17.587 – 00:31:18.347

Prosceno, Chris (CAI - Atlanta)
Thank you.

00:31:17.827 – 00:31:21.431

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I I wouldn't know who to talk to, but yeah,

00:31:21.431 – 00:31:27.902

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
if you've got ideas for people want to hear the same talk again, by all means.

00:31:27.902 – 00:31:29.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Thank you for saying so.

00:31:32.987 – 00:31:33.387

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Hey, Josh.

00:31:33.907 – 00:31:39.060

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
Hey, Stephen. Long time, no chat. First, thanks. I thought this was great.

00:31:39.060 – 00:31:44.487

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
I had one question that that popped into my head while you were while you were

00:31:44.487 – 00:31:49.227

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
talking. So you know, you mentioned, you know, kind of being on a a.

00:31:50.307 – 00:31:56.214

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
Like a a bit of a low information diet, you know, which I totally,

00:31:56.214 – 00:31:58.947

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
I totally understand. And then.

00:32:00.067 – 00:32:05.931

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
And then also like that moment when something happens of pulling of like

00:32:05.931 – 00:32:10.992

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
wanting to pull away. And then there's kind of a triangle here

00:32:10.992 – 00:32:15.009

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
for me, the velocity at which everything seems to

00:32:15.009 – 00:32:19.587

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
be changing these days. How do you find balance between?

00:32:19.667 – 00:32:26.061

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
Not wanting to pull away, being on low information and still kind

00:32:26.061 – 00:32:27.707

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
of able to adapt.

00:32:30.547 – 00:32:36.508

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
When the large language models really started popping off before the ChatGPT 3.

00:32:36.508 – 00:32:42.393

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
5 APII was like connected and a little after that maybe too hyper connected to

00:32:42.393 – 00:32:46.938

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
the advancements. You know, every stupid Twitter influencer,

00:32:46.938 – 00:32:50.067

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
literally anybody who had anything to say.

00:32:50.147 – 00:32:53.963

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Just diving into all the old AI channels that I looked at.

00:32:53.963 – 00:32:59.137

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I was just drinking from the fire hose and at some point I realized I have more

00:32:59.137 – 00:33:03.276

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
information that I know what to do with. I'm not processing it,

00:33:03.276 – 00:33:07.610

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I'm not actually using it. And then I began to change my heuristic

00:33:07.610 – 00:33:10.067

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
for what to pay attention to based on.

00:33:10.267 – 00:33:14.437

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Basically self-reflection of am I actually using the information I'm

00:33:14.437 – 00:33:17.761

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
getting? Because if I'm not, it's actively detracting.

00:33:17.761 – 00:33:21.326

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It is like polluting like the work my subconscious can do.

00:33:21.326 – 00:33:25.375

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It is creating noise in my life. It's definitely stressing me out.

00:33:25.375 – 00:33:29.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And I found that I kept reeling it back, basically less and less and less.

00:33:29.907 – 00:33:34.993

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Until I got to a point where it's like I can check in like on topics I care about

00:33:34.993 – 00:33:38.095

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
once a week, once every two weeks and feel like I

00:33:38.095 – 00:33:41.072

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
didn't miss anything. And now when I come back,

00:33:41.072 – 00:33:45.972

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I have much more energy to go in depth and I spend a lot more time doing stuff

00:33:45.972 – 00:33:49.507

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and I found that I had more to share and I learned more.

00:33:49.827 – 00:33:52.432

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
By yeah, every now and then doing a surface check

00:33:52.432 – 00:33:56.548

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
for what seemed interesting and but then I would go very deep and then I would

00:33:56.548 – 00:34:00.767

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
insist on using that information in some way and that if I wasn't getting enough

00:34:00.767 – 00:34:04.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
any information to do something with for long enough, I took that as a sign for.

00:34:05.187 – 00:34:07.594

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You know, this is basically vapid and I kind of

00:34:07.594 – 00:34:11.404

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
just wanted the dopamine hit or I felt like I was having FOMO or something.

00:34:11.404 – 00:34:14.211

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So I reeled it way back and haven't regretted it since.

00:34:14.211 – 00:34:16.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
We'll hope that answers your question there.

00:34:16.067 – 00:34:18.427

Reddick, Josh (CAI - Atlanta)
Yeah, yeah, I think it does. Thanks.

00:34:20.227 – 00:34:24.054

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Just try it. I think it'll surprise you how little is

00:34:24.054 – 00:34:25.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
actually useful.

00:34:27.347 – 00:34:32.727

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Anyone else? Questions. Comments. Got better ideas? I'm just one guy,

00:34:32.727 – 00:34:38.107

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
so if you have other approaches that you want to share, by all means.

00:34:41.827 – 00:34:44.928

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
I have a question, not an approach. How do you,

00:34:43.867 – 00:34:44.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Sure.

00:34:44.928 – 00:34:48.480

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
what does this daily practice look like for you? Like,

00:34:48.480 – 00:34:53.518

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
are there certain touchstones that you have within your day that you're like,

00:34:53.518 – 00:34:56.360

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
Oh yes, this is because it's so easy to get

00:34:56.360 – 00:34:57.587

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
distracted of like.

00:34:57.987 – 00:35:00.474

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
I am. I have so much experience doing things in

00:35:00.474 – 00:35:03.738

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
ways I don't want to, right? So when you start a new behavior,

00:35:03.738 – 00:35:06.950

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
it helps to have a little touch tone on what that looks like.

00:35:06.950 – 00:35:09.747

Lassiter, Beth (CAI - Atlanta)
So I was wondering what that looks like in your life.

00:35:12.067 – 00:35:18.440

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But for me, like I keep it simple. I have. I have a lot of systems and I've sort of

00:35:18.440 – 00:35:23.448

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
torn a lot of them down. It's like self reform, self-improvement,

00:35:23.448 – 00:35:28.227

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
junkie. I still do it, but now I just have less rigid systems.

00:35:28.307 – 00:35:32.262

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I still have my spreadsheet that has all of my like rules and like habits and

00:35:32.262 – 00:35:34.847

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
stuff in it. I don't really look at this very much

00:35:34.847 – 00:35:37.382

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
anymore. So now it's distilled down to just a few

00:35:37.382 – 00:35:40.373

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
things to remember, and the most important of which that's

00:35:40.373 – 00:35:44.124

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
relevant to this is meditation. I do at least an hour of meditation every

00:35:44.124 – 00:35:47.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
day, sometimes up to two, depends on whether I can fit it in.

00:35:47.347 – 00:35:51.086

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
What's going on? But this is, you don't have to do that much,

00:35:51.086 – 00:35:56.092

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but I I do that because it has made such a profound effect on my lived experience.

00:35:56.092 – 00:36:01.037

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
The half-life of feeling good after that is incredible and it that's what gets me

00:36:01.037 – 00:36:03.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
back to zero, like a reset point.

00:36:03.587 – 00:36:07.326

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Of oh, my nervous system is good. Like I'm fine staring at a wall.

00:36:07.326 – 00:36:11.622

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And that's really the benchmark is if you can't sit in a chair. I literally,

00:36:11.622 – 00:36:14.803

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I call this the chair test again, just to remind myself,

00:36:14.803 – 00:36:18.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
if I can't sit in a chair and stare at a wall for 5 minutes and not be OK.

00:36:19.187 – 00:36:23.263

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Then I'm not OK. Like, that's the problem. It's it's on the inside, like,

00:36:23.263 – 00:36:26.733

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and that's what I need to do. Amusingly, that is also the fix,

00:36:26.733 – 00:36:31.029

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
is to just sit in the chair until you're good. And it doesn't take that long.

00:36:31.029 – 00:36:34.829

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And then you approach the rest of the day fundamentally differently.

00:36:34.829 – 00:36:36.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So that is a huge cornerstone for me.

00:36:37.107 – 00:36:40.664

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Even and it. So I began to see meditation less as a

00:36:40.664 – 00:36:44.083

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
sense of something to do, like another checklist,

00:36:44.083 – 00:36:48.871

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
another thing I have to do. But I began to really internalize it as a

00:36:48.871 – 00:36:52.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
way to remember what it's like to be normal and OK.

00:36:53.067 – 00:36:57.555

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And content no matter what is happening. And then that becomes a sort of set point

00:36:57.555 – 00:36:58.907

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
for everything else I do.

00:37:03.667 – 00:37:06.620

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I don't know if that fully answers your question,

00:37:06.620 – 00:37:11.168

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but the rest of this stuff is like keeping it top of mind and a lot of it is

00:37:11.168 – 00:37:14.594

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
just done in the moment. They're pretty simple practices.

00:37:14.594 – 00:37:18.137

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I like the journal, but it's really not a list of things to

00:37:18.137 – 00:37:20.027

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
do so much it is you have to be.

00:37:20.547 – 00:37:23.382

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
To hold the belief and believe it is worth doing.

00:37:23.382 – 00:37:27.634

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And then life gives you the practice. It's not like an extra thing you do.

00:37:27.634 – 00:37:31.489

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You can keep going to meetings, you can keep going in the elevator.

00:37:31.489 – 00:37:35.854

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You can keep filling out time sheets, like do all the things you already do,

00:37:35.854 – 00:37:36.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but now.

00:37:36.547 – 00:37:40.662

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There's this added layer of a game that you're playing with yourself,

00:37:40.662 – 00:37:44.482

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
where you're trying to bring these values into all of your work.

00:37:44.482 – 00:37:47.950

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
You're trying to lean in heavily and do something quality.

00:37:47.950 – 00:37:51.947

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Not because anyone makes you to, not because you expect an outcome.

00:37:52.707 – 00:37:57.592

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Because it's a sort of game with yourself, because you have to be here one way or

00:37:57.592 – 00:37:58.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
another and.

00:37:59.947 – 00:38:02.568

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It's sort of more fun and more interesting, right?

00:38:02.568 – 00:38:06.217

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It's not an extra thing you do. It's a it's a different way of viewing

00:38:06.217 – 00:38:08.067

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and doing the things you already do.

00:38:14.907 – 00:38:15.387

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Cool.

00:38:18.067 – 00:38:21.253

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Any other questions or comments? Don't feel like you got to stick around.

00:38:21.253 – 00:38:23.147

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I think we're we're at a bad time here, so.

00:38:25.507 – 00:38:30.753

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
Hey Stephen, I I joined late, but I like what I I I like what I heard

00:38:30.753 – 00:38:36.074

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
during the time that I did join. Like I cut out social media like many

00:38:36.074 – 00:38:41.620

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
years ago and I'd find that I'm not distracted really by much of anything

00:38:41.620 – 00:38:44.467

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
besides what I I want to focus on and.

00:38:44.467 – 00:38:50.759

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
I think I'm definitely not as maybe practiced as as you are in some of the

00:38:50.759 – 00:38:57.050

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
some of your your daily practices, but when I I think when I when I when I

00:38:57.050 – 00:39:01.747

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
realized that things are gonna happen regardless of of.

00:39:01.867 – 00:39:08.026

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
What I what I do or there's some level of of acceptance or I can only control my

00:39:08.026 – 00:39:12.209

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
own reactions, not other others reactions to a certain

00:39:12.209 – 00:39:17.227

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
situation like it certainly allows you to like step back and not.

00:39:17.587 – 00:39:21.667

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
Be like emotionally heated in any sort of moment.

00:39:24.747 – 00:39:29.253

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Yeah, that's the way. I don't think you give yourself enough

00:39:29.253 – 00:39:35.162

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
credit. That's and yet you're never done. But it's it's just a different way of

00:39:35.162 – 00:39:38.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
viewing life I think we would all benefit from.

00:39:39.667 – 00:39:43.583

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Being more careful about what we choose to care about. I mean, paradoxically,

00:39:43.583 – 00:39:46.445

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
I think that we're taking in so much information. Again,

00:39:46.445 – 00:39:50.109

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
like I mentioned with attention, like you cannot help but care about it.

00:39:50.109 – 00:39:53.774

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
This is how the human brain works. If it if it's coming in the aperture,

00:39:53.774 – 00:39:56.987

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
it's affecting you on some level and probably quite profoundly.

00:39:57.427 – 00:39:59.808

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And so the less, the tighter your aperture,

00:39:59.808 – 00:40:02.459

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
like the more caring you can give to everything.

00:40:02.459 – 00:40:06.787

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Like whether you're going to a Little League game or you're just like writing a

00:40:06.787 – 00:40:10.412

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
report or whatever you're doing, they may seem like small moments,

00:40:10.412 – 00:40:13.387

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
but you have more capacity to care about those things.

00:40:13.827 – 00:40:18.805

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
And you know, again, paradoxically, those are the most important things in

00:40:18.805 – 00:40:23.783

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
your life. It is small, boring moments. That's basically almost all it is.

00:40:23.783 – 00:40:26.770

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
But it kind of stops being small and boring,

00:40:26.770 – 00:40:31.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and it does get imbued with this extra like weight of meaning and purpose.

00:40:31.947 – 00:40:35.780

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
As you withdraw from the things that really didn't matter to you,

00:40:35.780 – 00:40:39.380

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
and you don't need to feel any guilt about doing that either.

00:40:39.380 – 00:40:42.747

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So sounds like you're doing a good job to me. Keep it up.

00:40:41.827 – 00:40:45.707

Irwin, Jeremy (CAI - Utah)
I like your talk. Good Good work. Thank you.

00:40:50.627 – 00:40:52.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Anybody else?

00:40:54.947 – 00:40:57.427

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Questions, comments or there's some chat?

00:40:59.587 – 00:41:01.876

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Cool. I was probably more peppy in the first

00:41:01.876 – 00:41:04.267

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
talk. I guess giving two is pretty tiring, so.

00:41:04.907 – 00:41:07.492

Davis, Andrew (CAI - Burlington)
It is tiring. Thanks for doing it back-to-back.

00:41:07.492 – 00:41:09.107

Davis, Andrew (CAI - Burlington)
I really appreciate the topic.

00:41:09.787 – 00:41:09.867

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Oh.

00:41:10.427 – 00:41:11.067

Davis, Andrew (CAI - Burlington)
Well done.

00:41:11.467 – 00:41:11.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Uh.

00:41:11.947 – 00:41:16.972

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
Hey, Stephen, and I'll let the group know. I actually attended your first session,

00:41:14.347 – 00:41:14.467

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Yeah.

00:41:16.972 – 00:41:20.544

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
enjoyed it so much. And when you said in the first session

00:41:20.544 – 00:41:24.297

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
you were going to cover some of the second-half of the stuff,

00:41:24.297 – 00:41:28.777

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
I wanted to join the second session. So I want to at least tell the group

00:41:28.777 – 00:41:29.987

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
that's watching now.

00:41:30.067 – 00:41:34.421

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
I hope both of your recordings are available because if they are,

00:41:34.421 – 00:41:39.500

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
I would encourage you guys to watch his first talk as well because there was

00:41:39.500 – 00:41:44.513

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
there's a little bit of different talk and there was also some great Q&

00:41:44.513 – 00:41:48.932

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
A session at the end of it. So I I think this is this is what been

00:41:48.932 – 00:41:49.987

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
one of the best.

00:41:50.067 – 00:41:55.107

Miller, Jay (CAI - Mission)
One of the best topics I've enjoyed very much, so thanks for putting it up.

00:41:57.227 – 00:42:01.123

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Absolutely. Thanks, Jay. I appreciate that. Yeah, take it,

00:42:01.123 – 00:42:04.557

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
make it better. It's just that's how culture works.

00:42:04.557 – 00:42:08.849

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
It's just one person. So I think everyone's got their own ideas,

00:42:08.849 – 00:42:12.151

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
their own spinning, important iterations on life.

00:42:12.151 – 00:42:16.707

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
So I encourage hopefully everybody else to to share their ideas too.

00:42:16.787 – 00:42:19.930

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
That's what makes it work. There was somebody who had a hand up.

00:42:19.930 – 00:42:22.347

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Was it Chris? I don't know if they're still here.

00:42:24.147 – 00:42:25.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Oh well.

00:42:29.147 – 00:42:29.307

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
No.

00:42:30.907 – 00:42:31.547

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
All right.

00:42:32.587 – 00:42:36.927

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
There's no further questions. I'm going to end the recording.

00:42:36.927 – 00:42:38.187

Schrembeck, Steven (CAI - Atlanta)
Thanks for coming.

Deep Meaning at Work

Original recording